A Twist in Time
by Jaxin88
Summary: There's a blonde young woman in the marketplace, and she seems eerily familiar to the Doctor...
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: My familiarity with the Eighth Doctor comes from only the TV movie—about which I can only say thank providence for Paul McGann. He was amazing, even if the rest of it sucked. **

Chapter 1

On the floating city of Kastoris VII, a youthful woman rested against the shimmering walls of the Midranian marketplace and sighed. Pale sunlight filtering through the environmental bubble danced across her, setting her blonde hair aglow and shining off the silver key hanging in the deep vee of her purple jumper. A grey leather jacket hung loosely from one hand while the other ruffled her long hair.

Another miss. Rose leaned her head back against the wall, letting out her frustration in a deep sigh. How many years had it been, now? Traces of the Doctor were scattered across all of time and space, and she'd been searching for him, the right him, for so long. She scrubbed her face with her hand impatiently. The few times she'd been able to arrive somewhere when the Doctor was actually there, it was never _her_ Doctor, the one she'd last seen on the beach in Norway. Whether old and crotchety and being dragged along by a dark-haired young woman, curly-haired and stocky with an atrocious coat, or short with a question-mark embellished jumper, she always knew him— and oh, how she was going to tease her him about his wardrobe when she found him again. Rose snorted with her eyes closed, full lips twitching upwards. He'd teased her about wearing too much pink, had he? At least _she'd _never worn a decorative vegetable.

Letting her face tilt to the last meager rays of sunlight, Rose sighed again and slowly opened her eyes, only to jump backwards with a yelp. A slender man with thick chestnut curls was resting against the wall disturbingly close to her, his brilliant blue-green eyes focused with laser intensity on her face.

As wide brown eyes met sharp aquamarine ones, his face shifted in a blink from fierce concentration to a vague congeniality. "You know, not many people can claim to have a trans-temporal stalker. I feel rather flattered."

Rose's eyes widened further. "'M not stalking you!"

"Oh? So repeatedly turning up where I am and watching me from afar, that's simply an antisocial way of saying hello?"

She stepped away from him, nerves jangling with the knowledge of who this finely-dressed gentleman was— and who he wasn't. Yet, at least. "I shouldn't be talking to you. There's a reason I never approached you, y'know."

"Oh, I'm sure there is. I find myself incredibly curious, though— it's always been a particular failing of mine, curiosity." His wide lips quirked upwards. "It leaves me feeling rather akin to a cat, sometimes, though I have a few more lives than they." He paused, considering. "Well, had."

Rose bit her lip to hide a smile, remembering the many indignant lectures she had been subject to about the "feline menace" after the cat nuns' hospitality on New Earth. The Doctor's eyes caught on her mouth, then moved to meet her eyes with a disarming seriousness.

"I've seen you before, always on the edges, and never thought there was anything particularly odd about you. Well, other than the fact that you kept showing up—but you could have been yet another Time Agent. This regeneration is a bit more psychically adept than most of mine have been, though. More connected to the timelines. Please, I must know. What _are_ you? You're unlike anything I've ever seen."

Rose's teeth worried her lower lip, and he glanced down at her mouth again, although he quickly moved his eyes back up to hers. Was that a _blush_ on his cheeks? _Superior alien physiology, my round bottom._ His eyes widened, and the flush on his cheeks deepened.

Rose's jaw dropped. "Are you listenin' in on my thoughts?"

This long-haired Doctor coughed lightly and straightened his cuffs. "It's not that I _mean_ to, it's just you're, well, broadcasting. A bit."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Sure. 'Cause peekin' in my mind would be just rude, and Lord knows you're never rude."

"I'm not! And you said 'Lord knows'—but you're not human, I could have sworn—"  
>His eyes met hers again for a long, charged moment, and a shock passed through Rose as if she'd just grabbed onto a live wire. She gasped, and shut her eyes reflexively. Who knows what <em>that<em> was, but he couldn't know too much.

A gentle hand brushed her cheek, and Rose flinched and opened her eyes. The Doctor was standing right in front of her, his face a breath away from hers. This Doctor was closer to her height than either of her other Doctors had been, only a few centimeters taller than she was. His blue-green eyes watched her intensely, a curious smile flickering about the corners of his mouth.  
>"Oh, Rose Tyler." Her mouth opened in confusion, and his smile grew. "I believe I mentioned that this regeneration is somewhat more psychic than most, yes?"<p>

At her cautious nod, he leaned in even closer. "I can see what you are, what you will be to me." His eyes softened, and a long-fingered hand tipped her face up towards his. "I've never seen anything more beautiful."

Rose's eyes widened then fluttered shut as he pressed his cool, smooth lips to her own. A small voice in the back of her mind snickered at the thought that her first real, non-possessed kiss with the Doctor was with a regeneration she had never seen before, but subsided as he flicked his tongue gently against her lips. Oh, well. They'd never done anything in order before, anyways—she'd moved in with him before she'd known him a week. With a sigh, Rose opened her mouth and stopped thinking. This was where she was supposed to be. Here, in a quiet corner of an alien market, in the Doctor's arms—no matter that those arms weren't leather-clad or covered in pinstripes. Her mother's voice drifted back to her, from a day full of naivete and pain that had happened years ago.

"And in forty years' time, fifty, there'll be this woman, this strange woman walking through the marketplace, on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human."

Rose laughed quietly, sadly, into the kiss, and the Doctor broke it off, a quizzical expression on his already familiar face.

"I may not be the most sophisticated of paramours, but I have to say, my kisses generally don't inspire laughter."

"Jus' thinking about somethin' somebody said once." She smiled and curled a hand in his soft hair. "C'mere, you."

He came back to her eagerly, his lips curving against hers in a shared smile. One of his hands trailed up her sides, pausing to caress the smooth skin beneath the hem of her top. At her soft gasp, his tongue flickered again into her mouth, exploring and playing with all he found. Rose's mind went blissfully blank, shrugging off the aching weight of the loss of her family and the paralyzing fear that she'd never find her Doctor again. With a rush of mind-numbing relief, she dove into the flood of sensations playing across her body—the soft pressure of the Doctor's lips against hers, the smoothness of his tongue brushing against the roof of her mouth, the chilly caress of his fingers against her side and the chillier air that his hand bunching up her shirt had allowed in. She shivered, her body trembling from the overload of impressions.

The Doctor pulled away from her lips reluctantly and rested his forehead against hers. His chestnut curls brushed against her cheekbones, drifting in and out with his soft breaths. Rose kept her eyes closed, freezing this odd, perfect moment in her memory—the cool skin of his forehead, the gentle tickle of his hair, the cinnamon-scented breath that fell in waves against her lips.

She opened her eyes with a sigh, only to squeak when she found the steady gaze of the Doctor already fixed on her from a centimeter away. A small smile touched the edges of his mouth, but his eyes remained serious; hesitant, even. They never wavered from her own. He expelled a nervous breath and spoke: "Come with me."

A surge of mingled excitement and disappointment flooded through her. "What? No, I can't—you know that. I didn't— won't travel with you 'till later in your lives, an' there's no way I'm messing that up." She frowned. "An' I _hate_ how time travel messes with my grammar."

The Doctor's eyes crinkled in amusement. "Be glad you never had to learn Gallifreyan. We had to know all hundred and forty-seven temporal tenses before we entered school."

A wince flickered across Rose's face when the Doctor mentioned his planet, no matter how hard she tried to conceal it. His eyes were still steadily fixed on hers, and the smile he had been wearing grew sad.

"Something's coming for me, Rose. I can see it in the shadows in your eyes when you watch me, and I can feel it in the murmur of the universe." He took her hands in his own, sliding long fingers between hers. They still fit perfectly—Rose had a quick, flickering thought that they would _always_ fit. "Whatever is coming, though, it's not here yet." He brushed her hair behind her ear and drew back, his hand caressing her cheek gently. "Stay with me. Please."

"What about my past? Our future?"

He smiled cheerfully. "Oh, I've bungled my own timeline plenty of times. Hazard of being a Time Lord, especially if you're somewhat reckless, as I have to admit I often am. It's quite simple to adjust my own mind, to hide or eliminate memories until they're safe for me to access."

"So if I were to travel with you now—"

"Whenever we end up parting, I'll hide my memories of you until I can see you safely again."

Rose froze, her memory taking her back to Bad Wolf Bay. Her Doctor's face swam before her, the heartbreak that he tried so very hard to hide from her clear in his eyes. "Will—will the future you be able to remember this after we were separated?"

The Doctor in front of her shook his head slightly, his eyes full of empathy. "I'm afraid not. It would corrupt the timelines if my future self could remember meeting a you you'd not yet been, and that's not something I could risk. My future self will only be able to safely remember this when this you finds him again."

Rose had closed her eyes in disappointment, but she smiled at the quiet confidence he instilled in the _when_. Her Doctor would still hurt, but he was out there. She would find him. She had to.

"You've been at this for too long without rest, Rose." She looked up into the clear aquamarine eyes of this Doctor. "Come with me, at least for a while." He smiled, a tender, private gleam in his eyes. "I find myself jealous of my future incarnations for monopolizing so much of your time."

Rose looked across the quiet alien marketplace, the slender opalescent figures of the Midranian merchants almost dancing in the dim twilight as they shut up their stalls for the day. She turned back to the Doctor and beamed, feeling more at peace than she had been for decades.

"Yeah. Yes, I'll go with you." She nudged him lightly with her elbow as she took his hand. "Not 'cause I need rest, though. I'd have to be barmy to think I'd get any rest travellin' with you."

"Yes, well." His mouth quirked. "A salient point." His head came up like a hunting dog's, his gaze moving across the marketplace. "Now, where did I park the TARDIS?" Rose burst into laughter, and he shot her a glare that was weakened by the upwards tug of his lips. "Oh, hush you. Come on." She followed him, still giggling, into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Rose flopped back on what was now her bed, reveling in the smooth feel of the deep golden satin duvet underneath her. Her room was filled with color. The soft blue-green draperies that covered the walls arched upwards like a circus tent, centering on an intricately etched brass lantern that filled the room with a soft golden glow. Heavier velvet drapes in a rich, dark teal were looped back from the doorways that stood perpendicular to her bedroom door, leading to the opulent Greco-roman bath and the fully equipped walk-in closet, respectively. Deep, soft aubergine-colored carpeting covered the floor.

The Doctor's eyes had nearly popped out of his head when he saw the rooms the TARDIS had provided for her. "My word, she _really_ likes you."

Rose had smiled and raised a hand to the mahogany doorframe, concentrating on sending the singing presence in the back of her mind a flood of happiness and gratitude. "The feeling's mutual."

She blushed as she noticed that the elegant draperies were precisely the same shade as the Doctor's eyes, and coughed awkwardly. He was watching her with a small smile on his face, a sort of eager contentment in his eyes. He stepped forward quickly and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, and was out the door before Rose opened her eyes. "Good night, Rose!"

She pressed her fingertips to her lips in remembrance, smiling at the Doctor's odd, first-date behavior. "'Night, Doctor," She laughed into the empty room, feeling almost drunk in her giddiness. She was back on the TARDIS. The Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS. As it should be.

Her smile faltered. Granted, she would have to leave this Doctor eventually, otherwise his future would never meet her past. But for now, she was here. She was here, and he had _kissed_ her. Extremely well, and multiple times. And hadn't she always mentally complained about him never living in the moment? How could she wallow in the future, when she was so happy now?

She stepped into the walk-in closet and found a pink silk nightshirt with a matching dressing gown and a pair of grey velvet slippers. She slipped out of her black denim trousers and purple cotton jumper, folding them up and dressing in the TARDIS-provided jimjams with an irrepressible smile stretching across her face. The TARDIS was obviously determined to spoil her, and who was she to deny such a frankly magnificent timeship? A happy thrum buzzed through her mind at that, and her grin grew. God, she'd missed this ship. A quick trip to the loo and she found her shelf of toiletries just where she had once kept them, where she hadn't yet had a chance to keep them.

She blinked, and then shrugged and washed her face. The TARDIS was beyond her comprehension (and, she suspected at times, the Doctor's), but there was no other sentient time-and-space travelling ship that she trusted more. Rose grinned. How mad was her life when that statement made absolute sense? She patted her face with lotion that she had both left behind and not yet bought from the Tesco's down the block from the Powell Estate and purposefully ignored the (il)logic of the situation. She knew from experience that there was headache waiting for her if she ever tried to figure out the mechanics.

She padded back into her new bedroom, marveling at the mahogany furniture (bookshelf, stocked with all her favorites; armchair, covered in just the right amount of cushion; desk and chair, with her minimal luggage sitting on top). It would be nice to live with more than the absolute least possible, for the first time in years. Keeping all of her possessions in a backpack and a satchel was a practical necessity when she was travelling through all of time and space, but it was also a constant reminder that she didn't have a home anymore, and she hadn't had one in years. It had taken her years to adjust to having powers like hers—she couldn't really talk to anyone in Pete's World about them, after all. Her family had known she was different, but Pete and Mickey had helped her to hide the extent of her changes from Torchwood. She may've worked for them for years, but if they'd ever realized exactly what she could do, she had no doubts that she'd spend the rest of her life being monitored and researched. It had been hard enough to hide the evidence of her first manifestation… thank God for ret-con. She'd been outraged when Mickey drugged their team, but even then she'd known he was right, deep down.

Travelling the universe had been surprisingly enlightening about human nature—although it could perhaps more correctly be termed sentient being nature. Greed was one of the strongest motivating factors she'd ever seen, and if Torchwood ever found out they had a time-travelling immortal on their hands she'd have been splayed out on an autopsy table before she could blink, no matter Pete's position in the organization.

The day she finally understood how to step through time, she said her goodbyes. She loved her family, but she didn't belong with them anymore. She'd left behind more than she knew when she tore her way into the TARDIS so long ago. Those long hours back at the Powell Estates had shown her exactly how cut off from her Mum and Mickey she was. Forget everything she saw, everything she learned? It would have been like a butterfly trying to shove its way back into its dried-out chrysalis.

But travelling through time and space, saving worlds and seeing marvels that no one else from Earth had ever seen—_that's_ where she belonged. Right here, in an ancient, living spaceship, with a mad, beautiful alien beside her. For a moment she considered going to the kitchen for a cup of tea, but a jaw-popping yawn interrupted the thought. Leaving her dressing gown and slippers on the chair, Rose slipped under the heavy coverlet and curled up on her side. With a sigh and a smile, she fell asleep as the TARDIS dimmed the lights and gently sang her to her dreams. She was home.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Doctor sat in his study, the crackles and pops of the fireplace the only noise in the dimly lit room. A small collection of L'Quenya poetry sat abandoned on the small oaken table next to his chair. There may have been others on Gallifrey (all right, and pretty much everywhere else) that looked down on him for his, in their words, "abominable lack of focus", but the Doctor was fully capable of focusing all of his considerable concentration on whatever might hold his attention, and the new passenger he had picked up on Midranos certainly did that. He'd never seen anything like her before. If he'd never _looked_ harder at her, he never would have seen it. Her outside appearance wasn't all that extraordinary—pretty, yes, definitely that (_beautiful_, whispered a voice in the back of his mind), but her voice, actions, and form all made it seem that she was nothing more than human. The times he'd seen her before (running with Susan, arguing with Peri, attempting to keep Ace from blowing up the city, and wandering around Epsilon after he'd finally dropped Tegan off at Heathrow) he'd noticed her as a familiar face, nothing more.

The Doctor wasn't sure why he'd decided to solve this particular mystery now, instead of ignoring it as yet another hopeless attempt by that foolish Time Agency to keep track of him. Perhaps he was still smarting from Grace's rejection. Perhaps he'd had enough mystery, for once (_ha!_). Perhaps he was just bored. No matter the reason, he couldn't believe it had taken him this long to see her for what she was.

Gallifreyans possessed many senses more than the humans they so closely resembled— or, more accurately, the humans that resembled them. They could see the past, the present, and the future of almost any object or person they ran across—they weren't what would be primitively called _fortune tellers_, they were what could loosely be termed historians. The chroniclers of the universe.

Of course, constantly seeing not only every possibility but the decisions that lead to those possibilities and the consequences of each was nearly enough to drive one mad, even if you were a Gallifreyan. Few Gallifreyans were able to keep their inherent awareness of timestreams. For most, those initial time senses faded away as they aged, and only those who not only kept their time senses but passed through the Academy were considered worthy of the title of Time Lord. Those who hadn't matriculated stayed on-planet, to be forever looked down on by the graduates. It was why he had run away with Susan, when her time senses faded. There was so much to _see_ in the universe, and to decree that only those who had been titled a Time Lord were worthy to explore it was more than he could bear.

His dear Susan. She was a marvelous girl, and she deserved the universe, not to be forever cooped up in an unbending society that refused to see her worth. She was happy now, with her husband. He had seen it clear as day when they first met David Campbell—after all, even Gallifreyans had their places in Time.

This Rose Tyler, though—time eddied around her in a golden glow, dancing with her but never touching. She was… magnificent. The radiance of her reminded him of a long ago day with Koschei, when they had escaped their tutors at the Academy and broken into the TARDIS nursery. Sneaking in to spy on an enclosure full of fledgling telepathic entities—needless to say, it wasn't their brightest idea. The headache had lasted for months. But there had been a golden glow about the young TARDISes that was very similar to Rose's aura, and the same sense of the transcending of time. His lips quirked. And considering how the TARDIS had reacted to her, the joy and recognition that flooded through their connection… not to mention the rooms she provided. That suite was unlike anything he'd ever seen a companion receive. He leant back in his chair to scowl at the ceiling. It was nicer than _his_ rooms. A flurry of golden amusement danced through his brain, and his chair unceremoniously tipped him flat on his back. He yanked the chair upright again, rubbing the back of his throbbing skull gingerly. Now this wasn't fair. The TARDIS was his ship, and she had obviously found a new favorite.

"_I_ am your pilot, you know. We've been together how many centuries, and all of a sudden you've found a new pet to play with?"

There was a flitter of incredulous amusement from the ship, and his scowl grew. "No, I'm not jealous!"

A smug purr brushed against his consciousness, pulling with it another mind, stormy and aching. His eyes flew wide and he half stood in outrage. "What are you doing? She's asleep, and this is an unconscionable violation of her privacy!" His mouth shut and he sat abruptly as Rose's mind reached for his and immediately calmed. The twisting _painlossgriefexhaustion_ that had been flooding her mind faded, leaving a golden shimmer of contentment and safety that flickered like a long-forgotten melody across his consciousness.

Golden and transcendent, and she thought of _him_ as home. It was what he'd seen when he caught the golden flickers in her wide brown eyes. She knew him completely, knew the foolishness and the anger and the cruelty that stained his soul, and she loved him still. He'd never known compassion and acceptance like that, never known the bone-deep feeling of _belonging_ that he felt now, with her mind wrapped in his.

A small, self-deprecating smile touched his mouth, and he ran an affectionate hand against the doorway as he left the room. "All right, you aren't the only one who's smitten." He'd had assistants before, companions, friends—but nothing like the connection he'd seen in the eyes of the petite blonde sleeping in the room down the hallway.

The room that had just appeared in front of him. He glared at the ceiling and steadfastly ignored the temptation to go in and watch over her as she rested. "You're not exactly subtle, you know."

Another trill of amusement came from the TARDIS, and he was finally allowed to find the console room. The TARDIS thoroughly approved of Rose, that much was clear. She was acting as though she was as devoted to Rose as she was to him. Which was mad, of course—no matter how close others had been to the TARDIS, they still were never as connected to her as he was, even his fellow Gallifreyans. He frowned thoughtfully as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver to work over the navigation circuits. Then again, Rose was unlike any other that had travelled with him. There was a persistent voice in the back of his mind that kept labeling her as human, but his time senses insisted that she was no more human than he.

She was a mystery, and he couldn't wait to unravel her.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Rose sighed as she stumbled into consciousness, her mind filtering through the dregs of her dreams. She'd had the nightmare, again. Standing on that blasted beach, saying goodbye (and that was when she really knew. There was no real need for the sentence he never got to finish). Who knew small talk could be so painful? The look in his eyes, that devastated blankness, the false cheer that he forced himself to show because he hurt _so damned much—_ sometimes she wanted to scream with the unfairness of it all. She'd promised him forever, dammit, and a large part of her always knew it was impossible, but she promised him anyway. And though he knew just as well as she did that forever wasn't theirs to share, he'd smiled anyway.

Look where that had gotten them: trapped apart, with everything she had once wanted as Fate's final laugh. Mickey, the friend who was always there for her, until he suddenly wasn't—here he was again, waiting at the Jeep. Jackie, her mum who drove her mad, but who she loved so dearly anyway. Suddenly there was a Pete Tyler again, and Jackie Tyler's heart had never filled that hole. Pete and Jackie slipped into place like they'd been made for each other and it hurt so much to see, because the human she loved the most in the universe had suddenly found everything that Rose had just lost. But they were _there_, the boy who loved her and the mum who had never given up on her and the only man who could ever be her father.

And as the Doctor spoke her name, echoing with love and loss beyond endurance, he vanished and she turned, knowing beyond a doubt that the person she _needed_ was her mum. Her eyes were stinging with tear-melted mascara and overflowing, and Rose ran away from the empty spot where her heart used to stand towards the only strength she could find, because hers was all gone.

Her mother was running to meet her, and every step was a year, each breath a decade, and the posh new jacket that Jackie had happily bought on Pete's awkwardly given shopping spree hit Rose's arms with an empty _whuff_, holding not her mother's strong arms and brash comfort but a crumbling husk. Rose screamed, feeling the cloying taste of death entering her rictus mouth, but she couldn't stop, hollowing herself out as she watched Mickey and Pete disintegrate, screaming until there was nothing left but her horror and her loneliness, screaming until it wasn't a scream but a howl, and the blood that had torn itself from her throat ran gold.

And she was alone.

She sat up in the opulent bed of her room on the TARDIS, feeling sweaty, sick, and _hurting_, and the golden singing (_not howling_) presence in her mind braided her thoughts with a storm-cloud consciousness that was vast and alien and home. She was cocooned at the eye of the storm, and she was safe. Her heartbeat abandoned the frantic pace it had been setting, and her breath calmed to an everyday rhythm.

Rose got up shakily from her bed. The lovely silk nightshirt that the TARDIS had provided for her was soaked through with sweat, damp and uncomfortable in the cool air of her bedroom. She sighed and went into her bathroom, quickly stripping off her nightshirt and stepping into the warm rainfall of the shower. The washcloth sketched absentminded patterns on her skin as she washed herself, her mind serene in the sudden peace that came from her mental merge with the Doctor.

There was no use in attempting to go back to sleep now, she knew. After the change, the amount of sleep she'd needed had drastically decreased. The captive restlessness Rose had felt in those long still hours of the night while the rest of the world slept had sat like a weight on her mind, tainting every smile and laugh she shared with the people she loved. It became disturbingly easy to forget the continual human need for sleep as the years went by, and Jackie's yawns each night and Mickey's running jokes about his caffeine addiction were constant reminders of the distance that now existed between her and the rest of the human race.

Rose smiled painfully as she rinsed the jasmine-scented lather from her skin. Jackie had been the fastest to see the advantages of Rose's far less urgent sleep schedule, of course—Tony quickly became her duty, at least during the night.

And whenever Jackie wanted a nap. Or when she wanted to go shopping.

Rose's smile slipped as the TARDIS provided a quick blast of warm air to dry her. The loss of her little brother was a constant ache. She missed all of her family, to be sure. Each time she caught a glimpse of some alien sight that left her amazed or laughing a half-formed thought flickered in her brain to tell Jackie or Mickey about it later, only to remember that later would never come again.

She knew that Jackie and Mickey and Pete would live happy, full lives, though. Tony... Tony was still young, still trying to understand his place in life. He'd just turned eighteen when she had left, and he loved his big sister as much as she loved him. But there was only so long the "good genetics" excuse could work, no matter the hair dye and the makeup she applied carefully every day, and especially when both of your parents were very noticeably aging.

When she'd first been trapped in Pete's world, she was twenty-one. When she had been fatally wounded and the Bad Wolf transformation was finally completed, she was twenty-three.

Mickey had only looked a few years older than her, at the beginning. By the time she left, his hair had greyed at the temples. His jokes about becoming a 'dirty old man' to her barely hid the bewilderment that appeared in his eyes whenever he caught a glimpse of them together in a picture or a mirror. The Rose Tyler he'd fallen in love with was gone, replaced by this static representation. Rose closed her eyes against the lie in the mirror and submerged her mind again in the Doctor's rumbling power.

They were gone. She was here. And so was the Doctor. She had always thought _(hoped)_ that finding him again would be enough.

It had to be.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The library was dim when Rose entered it, the only light coming from the lit fireplace set into deep into the wall. There was a well-stuffed couch opposite the mantel, with sturdy tables on either side of it and a pair of matching deep armchairs perpendicular to the couch. She blinked as she looked away from the firelight into the darkness of the rest of the room, and warm light began to shine from a series of orbs that rested midair above a set of tables with matching chairs. It had a distinct feeling of kinship with the library at the school where Rose had taken her A-levels soon after she arrived in Pete's world. The campus had been bare and boring, but the library was a warm old series of rooms tucked away in a little-used building. It had been Rose's favorite place on the school's grounds.

She and education had never gotten along that well—her teachers barely ever cared about their subjects or their students, and it was hard to be interested in studying when your teachers couldn't care less about you. It wasn't until she started travelling with the Doctor that she realized that not only could she learn easily, but she actually loved it.

She looked around at the shelves that seemed to stretch into infinity around the small sitting area and laughed quietly, remembering the Doctor's posturing when they had been trapped in a (quite literally) Victorian library by a werewolf. No wonder this was one of the largest rooms on the TARDIS—she'd never met anyone with as much of a passion for learning as the Doctor.

She trailed a hand over the smooth wooden shelves, brushing a finger lightly against the scrolls, books, infocubes, and other types of data storage that Rose had never seen elsewhere. There was a soundless _shift_ in the library, and the next shelf that Rose encountered was filled with her old favorites: cheesy romances, clichéd potboilers, and the occasional classic.

She took down _Pride and Prejudice_ with a smile. Rose had been the only person she knew of who had been scolded by her Mum for reading the classics. Jackie had complained that her school was giving her "airs and graces", but she'd still protested fiercely when Rose dropped out to move in with Jimmy Stones. Oh god, Jimmy... that seemed a lifetime ago. She laughed a little to herself and moved back to the fireplace, curling herself up in the deep blue velvet couch.

It didn't really surprise her when the Doctor strolled in about half an hour later. She'd been waiting for him, she realized. If there was one thing that remained constant in any incarnation of the Doctor she'd seen, it was his intense need for knowledge. This Doctor had seen some version of their future/past together, and when you considered the fact that the TARDIS was coddling her like a long-lost child… he had to be absolutely bursting with curiosity by now.

Feeling puckish, Rose sat quietly, eyes absently skimming favorite passages. The Doctor was pacing, turning towards her then swinging back towards the bookshelves nervously. Rose bit back a grin. All that knowledge, all that power, and she was making him jittery as a schoolboy. Finally, he sat next to her with a sigh, eyes trained steadily on her face. After a moment to school her expression, she raised her eyes to meet his.

"Hello."

He smiled back at her, eyes tracing over her face intently. "Hello."

The silence that followed was surprisingly easy. Rose relaxed back into the overstuffed cushions, slowly memorizing this new (to her) face of the Doctor's. He really was beautiful, all soft lips and drowsy eyes. With the silk cravat and the brocade waistcoat, he looked like a Romantic poet. Rose tilted her head curiously. "How old are you? Actually, never mind that—what incarnation are you?"

"This is my eighth incarnation. As to how old I am, well, I lost count a while ago. In Earth years, I believe I'm well over a thousand, last time I checked." He blinked when Rose burst out laughing. "What?"

"Bloody hell, you lied about your age!"

A delicate flush rose in his cheeks at that, and he coughed lightly into his sleeve. "Yes, well. There are many ways of measuring age, you know. If I were counting by Heloxian years, I'd be merely three hundred."

Rose cocked an eyebrow, her tongue poking out of her grin. "Yeah, merely. Three hundred—why, you'd practically be a baby."

"Well, according to them, I would be. Then again, Heloxians are interdimensional beings, so going by their standards would really be rather useless." His eyes sharpened suddenly, and Rose was reminded that beneath the elegant fop was an alien who had lived for longer than a millennium. "And how old are you?" She dropped her eyes and played with her long sleeves, realizing nervously that she was sitting next to this unknown Doctor clad only in a silk dressing gown. As if this conversation wasn't going to be awkward enough already.

"I'm going to have to copy you here—I've actually lost count. I think I'm somewhere in my sixties, though."

He blinked, his focus far away even as he considered her. "Definitely not human, then."

A knot tightened in her stomach. "Oi!"

"What? I've been around plenty of humans in my time, and no matter how good your genetics might be, no sixty-whatever-year-old human should look as young as you do. If I'd thought you were a human, I'd have pegged you as early twenties."

"I was." Rose swallowed and twisted her sleeves, staring at the soft pink fabric. "I was twenty-three when I changed, though I s'pose it started when I was nineteen. An' if you're goin' to ask what I am—I don't know." She shrugged helplessly. "I haven't known for a long while."

"I see." When she finally worked up the courage to look up at him, he was studying her intently again. "Well, actually, I don't, but that's not the point." He closed his eyes for a moment while resting a hand against the table, and smiled at the tea service that was there when he opened them. "Tea?"

"That'd be lovely, ta. Milk an' two sugars, please."

He busied himself with the delicate teacups for a moment, only meeting her eyes when they were both served and nibbling on spicy brown gingersnaps.

"Would you mind telling me about it?"

Rose took a deep breath. "Guess I'd better start at the beginning, then." She stared at her sleeves again. "I used to be human, you know. Just another chavvy blonde off the Powell Estates in London. Never did all that much with my life—dropped out of school for the wrong guy, learned my lessons the hard way, worked in a shop day in, day out an' tried to tell myself it was enough."

She paused and looked into the fireplace. "It wasn't. I was down in the basement of Henrik's one night—God, I don't even remember what for anymore—an' the door locked behind me. Thought it was just a prank, but then the dummies started movin'." She smiled at his start of recognition. "Yeah. It was Autons. They had me trapped an' I thought I was done for, but then this hand grabbed mine out of nowhere an' you—well, future you—told me to run. An' I did.

"Long story short, we chased down the Nestene Consciousness, an' I ended up savin' your life. You invited me along, an' I left with you... eventually." She smiled into the fireplace. "I saw so much, with you. Back in London, my life'd always felt empty—but travelling with you, I got to see the whole universe, an' it was absolutely bursting with life. It's amazing, out here."

She glanced at the Doctor, who was listening raptly. He'd said this was his eighth regeneration. After the Sycorax invasion on Christmas, the Doctor had answered her every question about regeneration, including how many times he'd gone through it. If her battered, angry first Doctor was the ninth, then this gentle, perceptive man was the one who would have to go through the Time War. Oh, God. She swallowed heavily. She'd have to be careful—she'd held him through the night after the run-in at Van Statten's bunker, seen how shattered he was by that one Dalek's survival after everything he'd sacrificed. She couldn't let this him know that they survived the Time War, she just couldn't. What if his plan changed because of her loose tongue? She could end up destroying the universe.

"We ran into some enemies—really dangerous ones. You sent me home in the TARDIS, to keep me safe." The Doctor's mouth fell open at that, shock and disbelief warring across his delicate features. "Turns out I didn't want to be safe, I wanted to be with you." He took a sip of his tea and choked as she continued in a rush, "So I opened up the TARDIS, an' we bonded. Went back to Satellite Five, destroyed them, an' saved you. It was burning me up, though, and you took the Vortex from me an' regenerated. We kept travelling, 'till one day I got stuck in a parallel universe when we were tryin' to close a rift—if my parallel dad hadn't grabbed me at the last second, I'd have ended up in the Void. You were able to send me a goodbye message, but you said travel between universes was impossible, that I'd never see you again.

"I thought that was it, that my life with you was just a memory. I missed you every day, but I kept goin', worked for Torchwood. Then… then I got shot. I was part of a team that was s'posed to meet with a Shephaziian delegation for trade talks, an' we had some rookies with us. They'd never been briefed on transmat etiquette and freaked out and started shooting when the Shephaziians appeared. I blocked the shots from hitting the ambassador, but I blocked 'em with my body."

She smiled grimly. "Mickey said I got hit in the chest, but I don't really remember it, for obvious reasons. Next thing I knew, the Shephaziians were gone an' my team were lookin' like they were about to piss I'd started glowing as soon as I died, an' went off like a flash bomb. When the gold faded I was all healed, with nothing but a ruined shirt to show for it. The Shephaziians fled—apparently they thought all Earthlings could do that. Good thing, too, 'cause we found out later from some of our other intergalactic contacts that they're near-universally notorious for backstabbing their allies. Mickey ret-conned all our team, and the whole incident seemed nice an' buried."

Rose rubbed her eyes wearily. "God, I spent so many years after that on knife's edge. I had no idea what had else had changed with me, an' I couldn't get tests done, 'cause I'd've ended up being dissected as a case study before you could say boo. I stopped needing as much sleep, an' subjects that would've had my head twisted around in confusion a few years ago were plain as day—astrophysics, alien languages no one else had ever heard of before. Stopped aging, too. God, I was so confused. It wasn't 'till I finally remembered what had happened on the Gamestation that it started to make sense, an' that was five years after I was trapped. _Five years_.

"It wasn't 'till my thirtieth birthday that time started to change around me. Mum and Pete had arranged a surprise party, an' when Mickey brought me in I was so startled that I… I froze time, I guess." She snorted. "They really should've known better than to set up a surprise party for a Torchwood agent, anyway. I spent hours tryin' to get anyone, anything to move, but I couldn't. Wasn't 'till I fell asleep curled up against the wall that time restarted, an' was _that_ ever fun to explain. Played it off like I'd fainted from surprise—me, a Tyler woman—but my family didn't accept that. After everybody'd left, they sat me down an' demanded the real story, but they wouldn't believe me 'till I showed 'em my watch an' my phone, both of which said it was the next day already.

"After that, I quit Torchwood. Said I wanted to spend more time with my family, which was true an' all, but really it was so I wouldn't have any more of those glitches where other people would notice. And they kept happening. I'd go through a day and wake up the next morning to find it was the same day again, or I'd start skipping forward. My baby brother Tony nearly got hit by a lorry an' I froze time to get him out of the way, but that time it took me three days to get it unfrozen." Rose sipped at her teacup, and blinked when she realized it was empty. The Doctor refilled it with a small smile and waved for her to continue. "The worst part was knowin' there was no one I could talk to about it. Mickey and his grandmum moved in, but much as I loved my family, they had no more of an idea about what was happening than I did."

She blushed as she glanced at the Doctor. "Don't laugh about the next part. Mickey had always been into those naff old martial arts movies, the ones with the really bad dubbing, y'know? Anyway, it was his idea for me to go to Tibet to study meditation at this old monastery. Took ages for them to allow me in on account of me bein' some random British lady, but my guru, Kalu Gampo, took a shine to me an' started training me. I spent about three years there before I finally started to get a hold on my… abilities. Came back home after seven years there, an' started planning on how to get back to this universe.

"My mum and Pete were getting' too old for the 'good genetics' excuse to work, an' Mickey was goin' grey. Staying there just wasn't going to work anymore." She bit her lip and glanced at the Doctor, who was still intently watching her. "You're going to be mad at me about this part, but I was careful, I really was. We'd visited Pete's World once before, you see, an' I knew that was my best chance to get back through the Void safely. So I said my goodbyes to my family, and stepped back in time to when we first crashed there.

"The TARDIS was still recoverin' from her trip, but as soon as the past me an' you left her alone, she let me in and hid me in the Zero Room, where I waited for us to get back and head off to my universe. Blimey, but that was the longest wait of my life. The TARDIS took care of me, though. She set me out some books an' this weird Matrix-y helmet set-up that helped me… download, I guess, what I needed to know. I slipped out as soon as the past us landed in 1953, an' I've been looking for my you ever since."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The silence in the library was almost deafening. Rose sipped her tea and tried to hide how nervous she was, but the shredded napkin probably didn't help her charade. She couldn't help it, though. The Doctor had _that_ expression on, the one that said "You're an absolutely fascinating specimen. Where's my microscope?" She didn't particularly enjoy feeling like a very interesting bug. The TARDIS sang reassurance to her, and she smiled and sent thanks back. The Doctor started at that and came back to the present in a flurry of movement that would've been nervous, if he weren't so genteel.

"I suppose that explains the TARDIS's affection for you quite well." He smiled at her, and Rose felt some of her nervousness fall away. "She's been as protective as a mother wolf ever since you came in." He paused, and Rose tried to hide her shock with another gulp of tea. "I'm not quite sure how to frame my question, but I have to ask. Earlier, your mind seemed to be in some distress, and the TARDIS connected your mind to mine. It seemed to calm you."

Rose blushed, and she ducked her head. "Yeah, sorry about that. She used to do that for me when I had nightmares when I was travellin' with you before—guess I forgot that you're a different you." She bit her lip and glanced at him. "I didn't mean to be rude."

He blinked, and protested earnestly, "Oh, no, I don't mind at all. I wasn't sure if you were aware of it, is all." He smiled lopsidedly. "A mental connection like that is rather… intimate, after all. I didn't want to impose my rather peculiar psyche on you."

In the space of a blink, he was deadly serious again. "I don't suppose I need to tell you how dangerous your stunt with the TARDIS was. I've never heard of anything like this before, and that's for a very good reason. No one is supposed to channel the power of the Time Vortex, no one. Frankly, it's a miracle that you're alive."

Rose lifted her chin stubbornly. "If I hadn't, you'd have been killed. Not regenerated, but actually killed. I'm not going to apologize for that."

His long, elegant hand gripped the arm of the couch tightly, and he made an odd noise of frustration. "You could've died!"

"Yeah, an' it would've been worth it." She glared at him when he protested. "The universe needs you, Doctor. You may go on about all the problems you've caused and all the people you've hurt, but you've helped so many more people than that. I couldn't let you be killed, and the TARDIS agreed with me." Rose's eyes flashed gold in the firelight, and her voice echoed eerily. "We had to keep you safe."

The Doctor blinked, shaken by the power that rippled through his blonde companion in that instant. She and the TARDIS had merged momentarily, he was sure of it. He'd felt it in the ever-present golden hum in his mind. He sat back, dizzy with all the varying implications. He'd never heard of anything like this before, of a human merging with a TARDIS.

The connection between a Time Lord and his or her TARDIS was considered immensely private on Gallifrey, and not much was written about the subject. For any TARDIS to join with a secondary consciousness was nigh unheard of, and even more so if that consciousness was as primitive as a human's.

His lips quirked as he sipped his tea. Of course it would be his TARDIS that did so. She'd always been rather more independent of him than other TARDISes he encountered, and he was already infamous on Gallifrey as the mad renegade (for that, he blamed the scarf). There was no one else it could've possibly happened to.

When he looked at Rose, she was nibbling her bottom lip again. That was rather disturbingly distracting. He hadn't caught any deceit in her as she told her story, though there was quite a bit she wasn't telling him about their travels, and especially about what enemy could be so dreadful that he would send the TARDIS away to keep her safe. To think, when she was only a human he was willing to send away his oldest and dearest friend to safeguard her. They walked an awkward tightrope, now. His future self had obviously loved her, and she just as obviously loved him. He couldn't help responding to the trust and the bonhomie she instinctively gave him, but he still didn't actually know her, not yet. There was much she had unwittingly told him in her story, though. She was stubborn, for one, but she was also level-headed, and had an extraordinary strength of character.

A Time Lord's abilities were difficult enough to grow into for a Gallifreyan. How much more so did these unknown powers have to be for someone who had started their life as nothing more than human? He looked back at her, only to find her smiling in the firelight as she read her book. _Pride and Prejudice_. An excellent choice, that. Perhaps he could take her to meet Jane—lovely woman, with a scathing wit. First, though, there were some scans he wanted to run. Now, how to phrase that without making her feel like a lab rat?

She glanced up at him and smiled wryly. "Let me guess—you want to do some tests, now."

The Doctor blinked, feeling unnervingly off-kilter. "Did you happen to gain some telepathic abilities, as well?"

"Nothin' I've noticed. I just know you." She set her book on the table and stood, grinning at him. "You've been itching to figure me out for a while now, I'm guessing, an' you'll feel better with test results in front of you."

"Quite right, too." She flinched a little at that, and he filed it away as they left the flickering firelight of the library behind.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Though the library had been comfortingly familiar to her, this infirmary was far different than Rose had ever seen. In her time on the ship, it had been a serene, sterile place, all smooth white curves and flashing lights. Rather Star Trek, now that she thought about it. Had it changed before or after she'd teased the Doctor about his lack of Spock? She grinned. If it was after, she'd never let him live that down.

This was another comfortable wood-paneled room, with chrome details picked out on the old-fashioned leather stools. She bit back a giggle. Apparently this Doctor liked to stay in theme with his ship. The instruments looked familiar, at least—she'd traveled in the past enough to firmly appreciate all the wonders of the TARDIS' infirmary. She sat on one of the firm stools, letting the Doctor scan her with a mind-boggling array of instruments. She lifted her arms when he asked her, breathed into the mouthpiece of a rather disturbing tentacled scanner, and laid back on the soft leather sling for the TARDIS' full body scan with the patience of a saint.

There wasn't much she expected to find from this, though if anything would know what she had become, it would be the TARDIS. After all, the TARDIS had redesigned her, in a way. Rose Tyler, daughter of Pete and Jackie Tyler and creation of the TARDIS. Hmm. Didn't really have the right ring to it, in her opinion. She sighed and closed her eyes. Amazing as the TARDIS infirmary was, the results of that long battery of tests wouldn't be ready for a while, and she was feeling a bit tired again. Might as well get some shut-eye while she was scanned.

The Doctor sighed as yet another result came up inconclusive. He was really starting to despise that word. A soft snore came from Rose, and he smiled and settled a soft woolen blanket that had appeared next to him over her slumbering form. She'd seemed a bit fatigued ever since that startling golden glow and this was a good a time as any for her to rest. Free of makeup and without the weight of years behind her brown eyes, she looked incredibly young. Just nineteen when it started, she'd said. Rassilon, she was barely more than a child when she'd gone off with him, and yet he'd fallen in love with her. What could _possibly_ have possessed him?

He snorted softly at himself. Well, other than the obvious. He'd always been drawn to the extraordinary, and Rose Tyler was definitely that. He couldn't help feeling guilty, though. At nineteen, she'd made a decision for his sake that had changed her life in an exceptionally literal way. Watching those you loved decay around you was never easy, as he knew painfully well. To lose all understanding of your self at the same time must have been harrowing, and after a moment's consideration he brushed away the thoughts that raged about her youth. Young Rose Tyler may have been at the time, but she was apparently more than strong enough to handle the situation. Mentions of her faded humanity still seemed to bother her, though. Not that he could blame her, really. He shuddered at the thought of losing everything that made him a Time Lord.

There were some oddities to her story, though. Travel between parallel universes was rare, to be sure, but it was far from impossible. Had he gotten himself exiled again in the future, that he had no fellow Time Lords to help him? Romana was particularly adept at interdimensional travel, and she had more patience and understanding for his eccentricities than nearly anyone else on Gallifrey. He frowned and set aside the Helogian diagnostic scanner. If they had faced an enemy capable of circumventing regeneration on Satellite Five, why had he not called on the Council? Though his fellow Time Lords were pompous, arrogant blowhards, they were still self-aware enough to take seriously any threat that was capable of ending a Time Lord's existence, even if said Time Lord was one they happened to despise.

As she told her story, her pauses and starts showed that there was much she wanted to tell him, but she'd carefully edited herself instead. The deep unease that had been poisoning his thoughts lately swelled, and he lowered a suddenly trembling hand. Something was going to go very wrong in his future, and Rose Tyler knew what it was. Judging by her reaction when he told her which incarnation he was, it would happen soon. He sat on a nearby leather stool and took a deep breath. The TARDIS chimed gently at him, and he absently moved to survey the results on the screen. After a moment, he blinked and focused. Well. _That_ was unexpected.

The lights in the infirmary were lowered when Rose woke up, lending a twilight dimness to the darkly paneled room. They brightened slowly as she shifted and sat up, smiling when she noticed the deep burgundy blanket that had been covering her. Rose stretched and absently readjusted her dressing gown, only to freeze as she noticed the Doctor standing behind a smooth chrome-plated monitor. Oh, Lord. Hopefully she hadn't flashed him. She slipped off the sling and stood next to him, but he still didn't notice her. The screen wasn't being very helpful—the script that scrolled past her eyes was almost certainly Gallifreyan, though her Doctor had never told her directly what it was. The intricate loops and swirls of his native language had never been translated for her or for anyone else.

She took a moment to watch the Doctor. He was staring blankly at the screen, aquamarine eyes focused on something beyond her abilities to see. He got like that, sometimes, frozen in contemplation. He'd spend hours staring at nothing, completely absorbed in his own mind. It had utterly freaked her out the first time she saw it, especially since otherwise he was always in motion. _That_ was when it had really sunk in for her that he was an alien—not just some odd bloke who could pull the solution out of his pocket at the last second, but a centuries-old alien. Well, millennia-old, she supposed now.

Rose coughed lightly, and he flinched into the present. "Ah, Rose! Good, I was just going to wake you up." She cocked an eyebrow at him, and he pursed his lips. "I was. Eventually. Anyway, there weren't many conclusive results, but the TARDIS' scan was able to come up with a diagnosis, which does make sense, since apparently this all stemmed from her connection with you." He paused, and his gaze drifted off again. "The only problem is her diagnosis quite simply doesn't make sense."

"Well, what is it?"

"Apparently the Vortex bound itself to you at the cellular level when you connected to the TARDIS, and that trace has been the source of your… regeneration, for lack of a better term, as well as your ability to manipulate time. It has also apparently bonded to your cells and kept them reproducing perfectly, which accounts for your lack of aging, as well as why you didn't change your appearance when you revived." He batted long curls out of his face impatiently. "It doesn't make _sense_, though. Everything I've read about the Vortex has said that it's an enormously destructive force, not the universe's best preservative."

"Did people do much research on the Vortex on Gallifrey?"

He paused. "Well, no. And no one's actually been mad enough to experiment with it—it's far too dangerous."

Now it was Rose's turn to frown. "Well, then, how do they know how dangerous it is?"

"It just _is_, all right? That's one of the first lessons any Time Lord in training learns. The Vortex is not to be played with. Gods, when I think about everything that could go wrong…"

"Seems to me there's a lot of theory, but not much evidence there. I could understand why they'd want to play up how dangerous it is, though."

The Doctor frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it. Time Lords try to keep the timelines on an even keel, yeah? What'd happen if there were more people like me poppin' up everywhere, travelling wherever we wanted an' never aging?"

"It'd be chaos." He blinked. "So you would posit that it's been deliberately suppressed as an area of study?"

"Makes sense to me, yeah. From everything you told me, Time Lords like to be in control. Havin' someone like me wandering around time and space as I wanted would probably drive 'em batty."

The Doctor paled. "I can't say that I'd disagree with them, really."

Rose flinched and stepped back, but the Doctor spun and caught her wrist gently, penitence written clearly across his face. "Rose, wait. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

She raised her chin, trying to ignore the tears prickling in her eyes. "How'd you mean it, then?"

His free hand clenched and loosened. "The TARDIS loved and trusted you enough to give you this. Rassilon knows I make enough mistakes, but she doesn't. But this… Rose, she's made you effectively immortal, and given you the power to bend time to your will. Can you imagine what would happen to the Universe if anyone found out about this? Not just humans, either, but Time Lords? Gods, what if the Master ever heard about you? He may have been swallowed by the Eye of Harmony, but he's come back from worse before. He's infiltrated my TARDIS before. There's nowhere in all of time and space you would be safe from him, if he heard what had happened to you." The Doctor's eyes closed, and he sat heavily on a creaky leather stool.

His eyes snapped up to hers, and when he broke the fraught silence it was the Oncoming Storm who spoke. "How frequently have you called on these powers, Rose?"

She snorted. "Not much, I can tell you that. They leave me wiped most of the time—'s why it got so nasty in Pete's World. I'd gotten used to needing less sleep than anyone else I knew, and then time started goin' wonky on me, and I needed more. After that time with the lorry, I was comatose for nearly a week. Freaked Mum right out, that's for sure." She dropped her eyes. "An' even after I started getting used to 'em, after I made the jump back to our first visit, I'm fair certain I was asleep in the Zero Room for a couple days. So no, I don't use 'em that often. Not really a fan of playin' Sleeping Beauty, me."

The Doctor nodded absentmindedly, but his expression was still grave. "You're incredibly lucky I was the one who noticed you, Rose. I don't even want to think what would happen to you if you somehow caught the Council's attention."

She frowned. "The Council?"

He blinked for a moment and narrowed his eyes. "The High Council, on Gallifrey. The ruling body for all Time Lords? Surely I must have mentioned it before."

Rose swallowed, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "Right, yeah. That Council. 'Course."

"Rose…"

Her voice was low and harsh when she interrupted him. "Don't ask. Please. Just don't."

The Doctor watched her carefully, and she had to fight the urge to shiver. She'd forgotten the way he could stare right through her somehow, that inhuman concentration that made her feel like he was examining her soul. God, no matter what incarnation he was, it seemed he was mercurial and intense. If the other Time Lords were as big a bunch of stuffed shirts as he'd made them seem, no wonder he'd never fit in there. She felt a tickle on the edge of her consciousness and slammed her mental walls up, glaring at him. To his credit, he flushed and looked away.

"An' what was that? Thought you said you wouldn't listen in on my thoughts. Too _rude_, I thought," she bit out.

The Doctor sighed and slumped on the stool, his years somehow visible despite the young face. She'd never met anyone else who could look so old with just a shift in expression.

"That was unpardonably rude of me, and I do apologize." He met her eyes tiredly. "I'm sorry, Rose. I am. It's just… there's something coming for me." He laughed, and it was not a happy sound. "I've felt it for as long as I've had this body, something lying in wait just beyond my sight. If it were dangerous merely for myself, I wouldn't mind near so much, but it's much bigger than just me. Whatever's coming, it will shake the foundations of the entire universe." He fisted a hand in his soft hair, pulling painfully. "_And I don't know what it is_. I've never been a patient person, Rose, you must know that. Something terrible is coming and I can't stop it, can't make it better. All I can do is wait for the storm to break."

He closed his eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath, but opened them in surprise when Rose pulled him off the chair and into her arms. He relaxed into her embrace, his slender form quaking. After a long moment, he turned his head and kissed her urgently, his tongue pressing against her mouth. She opened to him, pulling him closer, trying to give him in physical comfort what she couldn't in words. The infirmary was eerily silent but for the soft sounds of their mouths pressing together, of Rose's panting when she pulled away momentarily to regain her breath. The Doctor trailed his mouth across her cheek, forging a path of kisses that danced down her neck. Rose gasped when he paused at her pulse point, nipping and then soothing the mark with his tongue.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It had been a very long time since Rose had been with anyone intimately, and she had to fight the sudden, mad urge to flee. Her mind whirled. This was the Doctor, after all. She'd wanted this almost as long as she'd known him, but he had carefully kept their relationship just on the edge of platonic, and she'd never pushed past that barrier. Their relationship meant too much to her to ruin it just because she couldn't keep her hormones under control.

Before being trapped in Pete's world, she never would have understood how terrifying it could be to have your dreams come true. And now that the Doctor was here, long fingers delicately caressing her back and cool mouth nibbling on her skin, she didn't know what to do but cling to him, trapped somewhere between jubilation and trepidation. The Doctor paused, his frantic pace gentling as he felt her hesitation.

"Rose?"

She opened squeezed-shut eyes, biting her lip in agitation. It didn't seem to help the Doctor's concentration. His brow was furrowed in confusion, and when their eyes met another shock like an electric charge ran through them. His eyes widened. "Oh!"

Rose cocked her head, breath still coming faster than normal. "Oh, what?"

He blinked down at her. "I seem to end up apologizing to you rather a lot, but I am sorry. I'd never want to push you beyond what you're comfortable with."

"'S all right, really." Rose caught his face with her hand, keeping him from turning away from her. "I just didn't expect it, is all."

The Doctor blinked at her. "You didn't? …Oh!" His blue-green eyes opened wide. "I didn't realize… I see now, of course."

She clenched her jaw and tried not to be too annoyed. The Doctor was quite skilled at carrying conversations on with himself, but it got a little annoying when he wasn't alone in the room. "See what, Doctor?"

"When I saw you in the marketplace, I saw what you are, and what you _will be_." He grinned at her as if it was as clear as daylight. The grin on his face widened, became smug. "And I won't say anything more than that. Now! You said you've manipulated time?"

Rose stared at him. She'd forgotten how dizzy he could make her—forget the turning of the Earth, the Doctor's mood swings were enough to keep her firmly off balance. She shook her head and tucked her dressing gown more tightly around her. He'd managed to loosen it when he was snogging her earlier. "How 'bout we head back to the library, yeah? I'm just gonna go get changed, an' I'll meet you there."

"Of course." With one last blinding smile, the Doctor turned back to the monitor, his attention once again fixed on it.

Rose smiled as she left the infirmary and headed back to her bedroom. She'd bet anyone twenty quid she'd have to peel him away from that computer once she was done changing. Her bed was still tousled from her interrupted sleep earlier, and Rose flopped down on it, staring up at the silk-draped ceiling. The test results from earlier didn't really surprise her, but the Doctor's confusion was… disheartening, she supposed. As soon as she'd started changing, in Pete's world, she'd known that the one place she truly belonged now was the TARDIS. She'd held a secret hope in her for years that the Doctor would know what had happened to her, that he'd… what? Be _happy_ for the change? Her metamorphosis hadn't been easy, and because of that, neither had been her relationships with her family. No matter how much they loved her and she loved them, watching Rose become something other than human wasn't exactly what they could've expected.

Rose snorted quietly to herself and went into her walk in closet, pulling out a pair of jeans and a warm green jumper. As if any of them could've anticipated where their lives would go. A grim smile pulled at her lips as she pictured walking up to her mum at the Hoskins wedding and telling her she'd marry the alternate universe double of her dead husband and have another child with him, and that her daughter would fall in love with a time-travelling alien and become effectively immortal because of her love for him. God, the Doctor'd thought her slap had been bad when he'd brought her home a year late—it'd be nothing to what Jackie would've done to her then.

Rose pulled her hair back into a loose bun and headed to the library. Her life had gone absolutely mad since "_Run_", and she wouldn't have it any other way. The Doctor might feel guilty for her change—she knew him too well to miss _that_ familiar look in his eyes—but Rose shuddered to think about what her life would've been like if she'd never met him. She probably would've gotten a mindless job somewhere that didn't mind that she didn't have her A-levels and ended up marrying Mickey, a bump under the front of her wedding dress.

She curled up in her favorite spot again, settling into the deep blue cushions. It wasn't that she'd never thought of there being more to life before she met the Doctor. It was that she'd always been told not to reach for it, because she'd only be disappointed. Yeah, her life hadn't been easy since she met him, but she wouldn't have it any other way. She remembered Sarah Jane and Reinette and smiled. They were right. Despite what the man—well, alien—himself thought, the Doctor was worth the heartache _and_ the monsters.

At that, the door opened and a head of chestnut curls popped in. "Ah, there you are!" He strolled over and stood in front of the fireplace, his hands deep in his pockets in an achingly familiar pose. "It'd be for the best if you told me what sort of abilities have manifested themselves, and how you've managed them. Some of what you've mentioned sounds very familiar, although not all of it."

Rose straightened eagerly. "You mean you've heard of abilities like this before?"

"Oh, yes. I have them myself. It comes and goes with my incarnations, but Time Lords always have at least rudimentary abilities to manipulate time. But stepping _through_ time—that's not something I've heard of before, among Time Lords or anyone else. Travelling through the Vortex is difficult enough with a Vortex manipulator. I've never heard of it being attempted unshielded—or at least, never heard of it ending non-fatally."

"But the rest—stopping time, restarting it, speeding through it—you've heard of that? You've _done_ that?"

"Oh, yes." At Rose's relieved sigh, the Doctor joined her on the couch and took her hand. "The TARDIS seems to have infused you with Time Lord abilities, to some extent, when the two of you were connected—the time manipulation, the non-aging. I'm still not sure _why_, precisely."

She snorted. "Infused. You make me sound like a cuppa tea." She avoided his eyes when he gestured for her to continue. "How did you… what sort of training did you have? To learn how to manipulate time safely?"

"I studied at the Academy, of course." Rose's lips twitched, and the Doctor cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothin'. 'S just—the Council. The Academy. The Master. The Doctor. Your people seem to have a thing for definite articles."

He was startled into a laugh at that and relaxed back onto the couch, his fingers tracing absentminded swirls onto her hand. "It's not that surprising, when you consider how arrogant most Time Lords are."

Rose fought a smirk. "Only most?"

"Why, Rose Tyler, are you implying something?"

"Implying somethin'? Me? Never."

They grinned at each other, comfortable in the warm glow of the fireplace and the ease of good company. Rose's smile faded, and her eyes went back to the dancing flames. This was _almost_ perfect. She could feel the Doctor's gaze on her, nearly a physical caress in its intensity. His hand kept playing with hers, writing words she'd never read.

His voice was soft, almost hesitant in the quiet. "I could help you, if you like. If I can."

She blinked and looked back at him. "What d'you mean?"

"With your abilities. I do, after all, have several hundred years' worth of experience dealing with them, though not all are identical to yours. The Matrix helps us learn how to deal with our abilities—I can't imagine attempting to master them on my own."

"The Matrix? What, like with Keanu Reeves? You mean that's real?"

"No, of course not. That's just a ridiculous movie." The Doctor coughed, his eyes darting to the side, his cheeks slightly reddened. "The Matrix is… the collective consciousness, I suppose, of the Time Lords, past and present. It's where we store all of our knowledge."

Rose's eyes widened. "Blimey."

He spared her a brief smile. "Precisely. Now, since you aren't a Time Lord, I won't be able to take you to the physical location of the Matrix. My people rather wrote the book on xenophobia, I'm afraid. I might be able to link with you telepathically, though, and bring you in that way."

"Hang on, though. When I was in the Zero Room, when I came back to this universe, the TARDIS set me up with this weird metal helmet, kind of. It's how she taught me to understand timelines and how to track you. That definitely sounds like this Matrix, to me."

"Oh." He paused, blinked. "Yes, I suppose you're right. That does sound like the physical interface she has available. But how… ?" He frowned. "You didn't have any problems with the other Time Lords in the Matrix?"

"No. No, I definitely didn't." The Doctor's frown deepened, and Rose hurried on. "How's it not like the movie, then? 'Cause I can't even count how many times Mickey made me watch that movie, an' it was just like that."

"Yes. Well." The Doctor's flush deepened, and Rose perked up. "A few regenerations ago, I happened to be undercover at a party the Wachowski siblings attended, and the hosts were serving ginger beer. I'm afraid I got a little bit… what is the term?… hammered."

"What, seriously? Ginger beer gets you drunk?"

"Not so much 'gets me drunk' as severely reduces my ability to metabolize alcohol." The Doctor stilled, noticing Rose's crocodile grin. "I shouldn't have told you that, should I?"

"Nope." She popped the 'P' enthusiastically, and grinned at him again. "All those times you an' Jack got me wasted on alien liquor, and you kept going on about your superior alien physiology. An' all it takes is a little ginger beer." Her grin widened even further. "Oh, I'm never goin' to forget that."

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably and sighed. "Oh, well. At least it'll be a future regeneration that will have to live with my slip."

"You sure? 'Cause I'm betting the TARDIS would be willing to help me out, here."

"You're probably right about that." He glared at the walls. "Traitor."

Rose hummed happily, but her smile froze at the Doctor's next statement.

"I would have to access your memories to see how far your training has progressed, you understand."

She bit her lip and glanced at him. He was regarding her steadily, blue-green eyes shadowed in the firelight. She cleared her throat. "There are some things that you _can't_ see."

There was a touch of irritated condescension in the Doctor's voice when he interrupted. "Rose, I told you, I can adjust my own memory. If I see something that might damage the timelines, I'll forget it."

She shook her head, blonde locks falling loose to drift around her face. "Yeah, you say that, but I know you too well. And I know what you've been through. It'd be too much of a temptation for you."

"I do have _some_ semblance of self-control, Rose."

"I don't want you to know about it, okay? You can't change it, and it'll just hurt you to see it. I… I can't let that happen."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: I was getting a bit impatient to start with the sequel, so you're getting more than one chapter today. 'Cause I'm a rebel like that.**

Chapter 9

There was a long silence in the library, while Rose studied the dancing flames in the fireplace and the Doctor studied Rose. She was an appealing contradiction, all teasing and bright eyes until he pushed too far, when her steel spine showed itself. She was so steadfastly dedicated to protecting him, even from himself. What on Gallifrey could he have done to deserve such loyalty?

An amused hum echoed in his mind. _Perhaps it is not about what you deserve, but about what she chose to give. You cannot claim responsibility for all decisions in the universe, oh Doctor of mine. Time Lord or not, sometimes all you can do is live with them._

He flushed and straightened his cuffs, a lopsided smile twitching at the edges of his mouth. The TARDIS was right. The universe was a vast place, and despite his Time Lord upbringing, he had seen enough in his travels to know that it didn't actually revolve around him. Whatever Rose's reasoning, he had to trust her. It wasn't hard to do. From the first time he had looked in her eyes, he'd found that he believed in her with a depth and a sincerity that shocked him.

He glanced over at her again and found her watching him, her brown eyes dark in the firelight. She swallowed and spoke.

"Can I trust you to do this as I ask?"

The fact that she was still willing to let him in after he had attempted to manipulate her into showing him earlier nearly staggered him. He didn't deserve her trust, he knew, but he would damn well try to.

"I'll only look at what you want me to see, Rose, I promise."

"I'm serious about this, Doctor. I need you to trust me."

He shifted on the couch towards her, slowly tracing her face with his eyes. "It goes against everything I ever learned on Gallifrey, but I do trust you. I would trust you with my last life." His lips quirked upwards. "Of course, most of what I do goes against everything I ever learned on Gallifrey, anyway." He braced his fingers gently on her temples and looked down into her eyes. "Have you had any experience with telepathy before?"

"Some, not extensive. There were a few alien species I ran into at Torchwood that were telepathic, but we had a team specialist who organized most of the interactions. Just picture a door, right?"

"Exactly. Anything you don't want me to see, just imagine it as being closed off." He looked down at her furrowed brow and smiled. She was adorable when she was concentrating so hard.

She flushed, and he blinked. She was already there in his mind, a warm and comforting presence. "How did you…?"

"Dunno, really. I think the TARDIS made it easier for us, though." She bit her lip. "Sorry, do you mind? I didn't mean to be rude."

"No, it's quite all right." _You keep confounding my expectations._

Warm champagne-bubble laughter echoed from her mind. _Yeah, well, maybe you should just give 'em up already._

_That seems to be the best policy where you are concerned. Now, about those memories…_

_I've got 'em right here._

There was a sudden jolt of movement, and the Doctor found himself dragged into her mind, staring at the pale pink-grey walls of the zero room, the light scent of roses drifting through the air. It had been centuries since he had been in here, and it showed. The room he and Rose occupied was nowhere near the calm cleanliness of his earlier incarnations. Debris from some unknown incident drifted through the air, marring the Spartan neatness that had once been a sanctuary. He focused his attention on Rose, the slowly growing unease of the past several hours skittering down his spine.

_What happened here?_

He could feel flustered dismay from Rose, and a clear sense of frustration—not with him, though. She seemed to hate the whole bloody situation as much as he did. _Sorry. I really can't tell. Here, though—_ she flashed forward a bit, and the Doctor found himself watching her younger self (who was surprisingly brunette, considering the current Rose's hair was the shade of sun-ripened wheat) slowly waking up from where she had collapsed in midair. That was the nice thing about napping in zero-G, as he had discovered after using the Zero room to recover from his previous regenerations. It was very hard to wake up with a crick in your neck.

Younger Rose's eyes fluttered open, her hand reaching up to clutch at her forehead as her chestnut hair drifted haphazardly around her face. "Oh, God. Remind me never to try getting hit by a bus, 'cause I'm pretty sure I just found out what it feels like." The lights flickered in sympathy, and she smiled at the walls. "I'm not blamin' you, love. I'm just glad you're feeling better." She bit her lip. "Is he… are we back yet?"

The lights dimmed, and Rose hung her head. "No, 'course not. I know I can't see 'im." She swallowed heavily as she looked around. "Nice as it is in here, I think a girl could go mad from the waiting. Could I at least sneak out to the library?"

A stack of books and a headset melted into existence next to her, and she smiled. "Have I mentioned how much I love you lately? 'Cause I bloody well do." There was a hum of amusement from the TARDIS, and current-Rose pulled him forward into her memory until they were actually in past Rose's mind, watching her as she flickered through all of the information the TARDIS was providing through the Matrix.

_This information is useful to be sure, Rose, but I don't quite understand—why is it only information I myself have received?_

There was a pause, and he felt Rose's hesitation. _It's a bit specialized, from what the TARDIS told me._

_Rose, I need to know._

He felt her pain then as she tried to figure out what to say. _You've kind of… lost contact with the rest of the Time Lords._

_I've done that before, and yet I was still able to access the Matrix. What can they do that is worse than exile?_

Her mind flared gold around him, distracting him from the study of the past. _You were exiled? What were they thinking?_

The Doctor smiled, warmed by her righteous indignation. _Oh, they were certain that I was a failure as a Time Lord. Sent me off to live on Earth and everything. Said it was appropriate, considering how much I liked to mingle with the lesser species._

_Lesser species? Let's see how 'lesser' my foot is when I shove it up their—_

_All right, I can see you haven't had the dubious pleasure of interacting with any so-called proper Time Lords. Perhaps that is why the TARDIS wouldn't connect you fully to the Matrix._

His hands lowered from her temples, and Rose blinked as she suddenly found herself sitting in the library once again. She stretched her back, feeling several small pops. "Blimey, how long were we in there?"

"Just over an hour, I believe." She glanced over and saw the Doctor watching her thoughtfully. "So, the TARDIS was able to grant you access to all of my knowledge. If I shield you telepathically, I might be able to give you access to the entirety of the Matrix. You would have to be careful, of course—any more outbursts like you just had, and our cover would be blown. The Council isn't exactly fond of me, and giving an unknown entity access to one of the greatest treasures of the Time Lords would not be… shall we say… endearing."

Rose frowned. "Do I really need to, though? I mean, I've been using what I've learned from the last time for about twenty years, an' I haven't caused any problems yet."

"No, perhaps not, but I wasn't exactly the most diligent of students when I attended the Academy. Learning more through the Matrix could only help you in your quest, Rose. Please. Let me help you."

She glanced down at her clasped hands, forcing herself to sound casual. "But I'm from your future, an' I can't exactly access the Matrix there. Would I be hurting anything if I managed to pop my head in now?"

He beamed at her. "I'm sure it'll be fine. It is the collected knowledge of the Time Lords, after all. There are quite literally countless safeguards in place to protect against the possible consequences of temporal instability."

"Right, okay." Rose took a deep breath. "I'm ready when you are."

His hands rose again to brace around her face, his blue-green eyes studying her intently. "I guess we'll begin, then."

Their eyes drifted shut at the same time.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Rose drifted into awareness, slowly registering the familiar presence of the Doctor. She was surrounded by him, resting at the center of his consciousness.

_Rose? Are you all right?_

_ Yeah, I'm fine. Not all that used to the whole telepathy thing, I guess._

_ It can be a bit overwhelming if you're not sure what to expect. I'll be accessing the Matrix soon, so we must keep our communication to a minimum. I've shielded you as best I can, but this won't exactly be a walk in the park. Which really, the reliability of that idiom depends entirely on the pleasantness of the park in question. On Questiljainovaritus, the parks are filled with ruffians made entirely of magma. Telling a Questiljainovaritian to go on a walk in the park is the equivalent of telling an Earthling to go to hell._

_ Doctor? Were you planning on actually doin' something, or just talkin' my ears off?_

_ We're in my head, Rose, your ears have nothing to do with this conversation._

Rose's amusement flared. Yes, definitely the same man.

_Right, no more of that, Miss Tyler. I'm entering the Matrix_.

She smothered her laughter, using the meditation techniques she had learned in Tibet to calm her own mind. _I'm ready when you are, then._

For a moment more, nothing changed. Then there was a rush of _something_ and the quiet space that she and the Doctor had just occupied multiplied exponentially, changing from a still white space to a boundless night sky. Rose stifled a gasp. God, sights like this were why she loved this life, no matter what she'd lost. The Doctor concentrated around her and suddenly they were drifting in orbit around a brilliant green star.

_Following specific timelines without a telepathic connection or a TARDIS—this should be useful._

With a start, Rose realized that the stars littering the inky black sky they drifted in were actually areas of study. The Matrix was apparently a sort of celestial library.

_Actually, the appearance changes to fit perception—this has always been the way I experienced it, but I had an old friend who saw it as a gigantic laboratory._ The Doctor focused on the star again, the stream of knowledge coming from it almost blinding in its intensity. Rose shuddered, her mind nearly overwhelmed. She might absorb the information more quickly this way, but it was anything but comfortable.

They were both concentrating so hard that the appearance of another presence next to them went unnoticed until the stranger made the mental equivalent of a polite cough. The Doctor jerked away from the star in surprise, and Rose furled herself tightly at the center of his consciousness.

The other mind was somehow stiff and nebulous at the same time, a deep navy that hovered on the edges of the Doctor's mind. _Theta. Good to see you here._

The Doctor snorted. _You've never been pleased to see me, Leivos. What do you want?_

The navy mind stiffened further. _I was sent to offer greetings from the Council, Theta. You may have spent your lives trotting around the universe, consorting with all sorts of low creatures, but for some reason they still have need of you. _

_I should've known._ The Doctor's mind darkened, frustration mixing with disdain and a small, hidden sense of hurt. _So, what does the Council want this time?_

_It is not for us to speak of here, Theta._ Leivos sniffed._ Happy as our world might be without you, consider this your summons back to Gallifrey. The Council will be watching your timeline. Do not make them wait too long._ With that, he receded, and the Doctor was once again left alone with Rose.

_It seems we should be going._ With barely that amount of warning, Rose found herself opening tired eyes to find the Doctor frowning into space, his hands still cradling her head. The fire had dimmed while they were in the Matrix, and she could only just trace the lines of his face.

She spoke softly, loathe to break the tense silence of the room. "Doctor?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes." He lowered his hands abruptly. "Was that helpful?"

"Yeah, I s'pose—might take a bit for me to absorb all that, but it's good to know more."

"Right." He was still staring into space, and Rose took his hands gently. He blinked and looked down at her, his eyes glinting in the firelight.

"Doctor, are you sure you're all right?"

His answering smile barely deserved the name. "Oh, I'm quite all right. Nothing for you to worry about, I'm sure."

Rose snorted. "It's you. Of course I'm going to worry."

His eyes softened in the dim golden glow, and he raised their clasped hands to kiss her knuckles. "There's no need, Rose."

He held her hands closer, but she frowned as she watched him retreat into his mind. "Doctor, please. Just talk to me. It's not good for you to hold everything in."

His eyebrows rose. "Now, that's not something that I've often been accused of."

"Oh, I'm not denying that you talk plenty. You just hardly ever _say_ anything."

He watched her steadily, a small smile on his face. "Ever inquisitive, aren't you?" At her shrug and nod, he sighed and slumped back into the couch, pulling Rose close as he did so. "It's never a good thing when the Council summons me. I'm not exactly a favorite on Gallifrey—no matter how many times they elect me President—and they only ever call on me when they can't think of any other option."

Rose blinked. "Wait, they elected you President?"

"Oh, a couple times. Of course, I did the best I could to get out of it, and the Council still hasn't forgiven me entirely."

"Of course." Rose shook her head, the pounding in her temples growing by the moment. Everything she had learned today tumbled around in her head, and it felt like her skull would split from the pressure. The Doctor had pulled her into his side as he leaned back, and she found herself resting comfortably against his chest. She lifted her head a little as a thought came to her. "Doctor, Leivos said something—he kept calling you Theta."

The Doctor smiled into her hair, his hands brushing soothingly against her golden locks. "Ah, yes. I was wondering if you'd caught that. It's not my name, if that's what you were wondering. More of an old school nickname—I wasn't exactly fond of it at the time."

"M'kay." She curled in closer to him, resting her head against his shoulder.

He laughed a little, enjoying the almost feline way she cuddled up to him. "Get some rest, Rose. Direct transfer isn't exactly an easy way of learning for non-Time Lords. Your head must be splitting about now."

She grumbled a soft agreement, her eyes slipping shut as she drifted into sleep. The Doctor held her close, his eyes reflecting the dim light of the dying fire.

* * *

><p>When she woke several hours later, the fire had gone out, but his arms were still wrapped around her.<p>

As he spoke, Rose could hear the smile in his soft voice. "Feel better?"

She smiled and tucked herself further into him. "Lots, thanks."

His lips brushed against her hair. "I'm glad."

She bit her lip as she thought over their encounter in the Matrix. "Doctor?"

"Yes, Rose?"

"What did Leivos mean, that the Council will be watching your timeline?"

He sighed and sent a mental command to the TARDIS. The fire roared back to life, bathing the room in flickering golden light. "The trouble with Time Lords—and my, that sounds like a children's book, doesn't it?—is that we can go for decades without seeing each other. Centuries, even. It makes temporally adjacent communication rather difficult if we can put off heading back to the old homestead for a century and yet still arrive on time. If the Council calls for a full assembly, though, they keep a close eye on the timelines of all those who are summoned. It ensures that we actually come when called." He grimaced. "All I need is a collar, really. Woof."

She sighed into the crook of his neck, absently noting his shiver. "So you've got to head back."

He nodded, tightening his arms around her. "Soon, I'm afraid. I won't be able to help you as much as I had wished."

She lifted her head, staring straight into his eyes. "Doctor, you've done plenty." She smiled crookedly. "It might take me a bit to digest everything you gave me, but it'll help. I'm not flying blind anymore."

The Doctor's eyes traced over her face, memorizing it carefully. "I wish I could take you with me, and damn the consequences. Do you have any idea what you've given me?" She shrugged uncomfortably, and he gave her a gentle kiss. "You've given me hope. No matter what happens to me, I'll survive, and I'll find you."

She bit her lip and blinked back tears. "You will. And then I'll find you."

He stared into the distance for a moment, his blue-green eyes focused on something she would never see. "That you will." He reached down and kissed her again, tracing her lips with his tongue gently. She moaned and opened her mouth to him, and he smiled into the kiss as he wrapped his arms yet more closely around her. When they finally broke apart, she was panting and even he was looking a little breathless.

She sat up reluctantly, shivering once she was no longer wrapped in the Doctor's embrace. She glanced over at him and sighed, running her hand through her hair. "I don't want to go."

He smiled sadly. "And I don't want you to, but I doubt the other Time Lords would be as fond of you as I am."

A bitter smile quirked her lips. "Oh, I'm sure they wouldn't." She glanced down at her clasped hands. She'd known she'd have to leave him from the moment she accepted his offer, but she didn't expect it to be this _soon_.

A bell began ringing in the distance, its mournful tones echoing through the corridors of the TARDIS. Rose looked up curiously, then blanched as she caught a glimpse of the Doctor's face. He was paper-white, his eyes widened in shock and... fear? The Doctor was almost never afraid.

Rose shivered and took his hand in hers."Doctor? What is it? What's wrong?"

"That's... that's the Cloister Bell. It only rings if something has gone wrong on a cataclysmic scale." He turned back to her, his jaw tight. "I have to go, Rose, and you can't come with me." He glanced back into the hallway, where the Cloister Bell continued to ring. "It's time to go back to Gallifrey."

She swallowed heavily and rested a palm against his cheek, leaning up to kiss him. "I'll leave, then." When she stood, his eyes were still closed. "I know you can't remember me, but please—remember this. Stay safe. Please."

He met her eyes gravely and nodded, glancing over at the door when a thump sounded. He smiled wryly. "Looks like the TARDIS has been preparing for you."

A small messenger bag rested there, and when Rose opened it she gasped. Her battered satchel and worn leather suitcase were sitting at the bottom of a space that was at least the size of a small broom closet. A familiar leather wallet was sitting in the front pocket of the bag, and Rose smiled as she opened it to find it blank.

Psychic paper. Now _this_ would be useful. She'd been scraping by with whatever currency Mickey had been able to get her from Torchwood's archives, and she was running low on tradable jewelry. She smiled slightly. Her last few years in Pete's world, the tabloids had insisted she was a shopaholic. She had done a lot of shopping, but only in preparation for her travels. Gems and precious metals were tradable almost everywhere, even if it was as a snack... now _that_ had been an odd planet.

The Doctor stood next to her and cleared his throat, and she glanced over to see him fiddling with something in his pocket. "Yeah?"

"You might find this useful." He pulled out whatever it was, and Rose found herself looking at a slender silver pen-like device with a red apparatus at the top.

She stared at at, then glanced up at him. "Is that...?"

"My sonic screwdriver, yes. I've been meaning to make a new one for a while now, and it has its uses." He grinned faintly. "Its many, many uses."

"But I can't take this! What if you need it?"

The Doctor waved a hand airily. "Oh, I can whip one up in a jiffy—the TARDIS keeps all the parts on hand for me." He looked down and met her eyes soberly. "And if I can't go with you, at least I can give you this much."

Rose flung her arms around him, attempting to ignore the heavy toll of the Cloister Bell, still ringing in the background. "Thank you. For everything."

He held her tightly to him, and she felt his smile against her cheek. "Anything for you, Rose."

She nodded miserably and stepped back, hoisting the bigger-on-the-inside messenger back over her head and straightening her shoulders.

It was time to go, and they both knew it. With one last smile at the Doctor, Rose closed her eyes and concentrated. A crackling schism formed in front of her, and she opened eyes that were blazing gold and stepped through. The tear sealed itself after she vanished, and the Doctor closed his eyes.

When he opened them a few minutes later, he frowned. What was he doing in the library? Leivos had been quite clear about him going to Gallifrey as quickly as possible, and the Cloister Bell was making it deafeningly obvious that this wasn't yet another of the Council's games. With a shrug, he headed off purposefully for the control room.

It was time to go home.

FINIS

**Author's note: And that's the end of this installment! I've already got the sequel mostly written, so I'll start posting that very soon. Keep an eye out for _Orbiting Home_. ****The Doctor may have had to burn the land and boil the sea, but the sky is still his to explore...**


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